High Court Soundtrack …

Robert Siegel spoke with Jerry Goldman, founder and director of the Oyez Project. Mr. Goldman explained that the project is providing audio of Supreme Court sessions dating back to 1955. In addition to audio, there is information about the cases, how the Justices voted and who the advocates were on the cases.

Listening to this story I wanted to check the site, http://www.oyez.org/, to see if there was audio of a case that involved our area.

Once home, I checked and the site returned a case from 2001 involving Lackawanna County and Edward Coss Jr. The case had its beginnings back in 1986, when Edward Coss Jr., 17 year old Scrantonian, was tried as an adult on several charges including aggravated assault. He served his time on those charges but later was arrested again in 1989 on assault charges. During the second trial, Mr. Coss fled and he was tried in absentia. He was later captured in 1991 in Narrowsburg, N.Y.

Mr. Coss later would appeal his conviction because he felt that he received a longer sentences for the 1989 assault case because of the 1986 case. With the 1986, Mr. Coss also felt that he had an ineffective attorney that resulted in his conviction.

The Justices in a 5 to 4 decision found in favor of Lackawanna County. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote the majority opinion, saying that defendant (Mr. Coss) had an opportunity to have a review of his case and once that review period had past the conviction stands. The defendant then can’t complain that the earlier conviction was used in considering later sentences.

In addition to the case involving Lackawanna County, you can listen to some 9,000 hours of audio of the proceedings.